NPB Tracker

There’s been lots of news about Junichi Tazawa over the last day or two, but I could use a break for him so I’m going to write about other stuff. If you’re looking for info on Tazawa, check out the stuff I’ve posted over the last few days.

On to the bullet points…

English Articles:

• David Watkins of Tsubamegun takes an in-depth look at the Yakult Swallows lineup changes this year.
• Chris Resop started his first game for the Hanshin Tigers, going 5 innings and giving up 2 runs. He didn’t figure in the decision.
• Resop’s old boss, Frank Wren, just got back from a trip to Japan.
• Deanna has photos from yet another Lotte farm team game, including shots of heralded rookie Yuuki Karakawa.
• Apparently Hideki Okajima isn’t that crazy about life in America.
• Michael Westbay of JapaneseBaseball.com has started up a podcast called Pro Yakyu this Week.

Japanese Articles:

• The SoftBank Hawks played with the Yahoo Dome’s retractable roof open for the first time in nine years on Sept 11. Hari-kaasan has more pics.
• Video highlights of Yu Darvish’s most recent win have been posted to YouTube. Darvish struck out 13 over 8 innings.
• Hanshin beat Yakult on Sept 10 with a walk-off walk.
• Tuffy Rhodes and Alex Cabrera both homered in the surging Buffaloes 6-1 win over Lotte. Orix is now just 4 games behind Seibu for 1st place in the Pacific League. Vote Daijiro Ohishi for Manager of the Year in ‘08.

Back on to current events… here’s today’s collection from around the ‘net.

Japanese Articles

• Yu Darvish made his first start since returning from the Olympics, throwing 96 pitches over eight innings of one-hit ball.
• Kazumi Saito has completed the US stint of his rehab and has returned to Japan to finish up. I wonder if we’ll see him in a game this season…
• Updates on Hanshin’s three foreign-born relief pitchers: Jeff Williams was dropped to the farm team for rest after two bad outings; Chris Resop is also on the farm team getting a look as a starter, but meanwhile Scott Atchison has been holding down the fort with 10 consecutive scoreless outings.
• Chunichi Dragons owner Junnosuke Shirai has suggested that rather than rely on Senichi Hoshino for next year’s WBC team, Japan goes with the manager of this year’s NPB champion.

English Articles

• Deanna posted a great interivew with Rakuten slugger Fernando Seguignol. For anyone who hasn’t seen Deanna’s site, I highly recommend it — she gets some excellent interviews.
• Koji Uehara returned to Yomiuri’s starting rotation last week and picked up a win.
• The Softbank Source reports on last weekend’s Hawks-Marines series, where all three games ended in ties. This the first time in NPB history that’s happened.

NPB’s All-Star break has finally arrived, but there’s still plenty to read about. Here are today’s selections.

English links:

• Simon at jhockey looks at NPB team defensive stats.
• Random discovery on Google News: an article about Rakuten’s team translator.
• The New York Times reports on Ichiro’s 3000th hit, with a little inaccuracy.
• The Daily Yomiuri has a piece on the All-Star Game. American Colby Lewis as well as two others have drawn mandatory 10-day stints on the DL for withdrawing from the game.

Japanese Links:

• Softbank is aggressively trying to add a power-hitting import before the July 31 deadline. They’re said to be targetting a 3A player. We’ll know who they get soon. Probably won’t be Barry Bonds.
• Chunichi extended manager Ochiai for two more seasons. Seems like a no-brainer given the success he’s had.
• Koji Uehara picked up his first save of the year for the Giants.
• Chris Resop has made a good impression so far for Hanshin: shutting down the Dragons with only fastballs in his debut, and following that performance by showing good breaking stuff.
• Yahoo! Japan is reporting that Hanshin is interested in acquiring Lotte free agent-to-be Naoyuki Shimizu this off-season.　Shimizu is from Hanshin’s home territory, Hyogo Prefecture. Hanshin’s interest in impending Yokohama free agent, and Nara native Daisuke Miura was reported earlier this year.

Headlines from the Japanese side of the web tonight:

• I caught a blurb on Softbank negotiating with a foreign power hitter in Sports Hochi. Says team COO Takeuchi, “when we reach the final stages we’ll make an announcement. Currently we’re negotiating”. This report is a little old and doesn’t hint at who it might be. Maybe negotiations didn’t go anywhere.
• Yu Darvish threw 165 pitches in Nippon Ham’s July 23 loss to Lotte. Darvish hung around until the 8th inning, allowing 5 earned runs on 11 hits and 5 walks while striking out 10. Sanspo quotes Nippon Ham manager Nashida: “I thought we’d go until 140. He himself said that’d go. His love for the team is intense. I thought he’s dependable”. Ham pitching coach Masato Yoshii commented that Darvish didn’t have his good stuff.
• Chris Resop hit 98 MPH on the gun in a practice with Hanshin. The coaches seem impressed. Tomoyuki Kubota holds the Hanshin record for fastest pitch in a game at 157 KM/H (98.125 MPH).
• Hiroshima made two minor trades recently that totally slipped by me. They picked up Rui Makino from Rakuten for Kenta Satake, and Akira Tanaka from Orix for Koji Yamazaki. There seem to be more trades happening in NPB recently.

As an addendum, I also posted some highlights from the Darvish game I mentioned.

English Links:

• Veteran NPB journalist Wayne Graczyk made a trip to Starfin Stadium in Asahikawa.
• Jim Allen has an article on Japan manager Senichi Hoshino’s decision to include Koji Uehara on the Olympic roster. Gutsy call by Hoshino; I think it was the right move.
• Looks like Jeff Williams updated his site.

Japanese Links:

• New Hanshin reliever Chris Resop has arrived in Japan. “Great!” he said adding, “they really cheer feverishly. I’ve never been to this kind of ballpark before. I’ve never seen this in America.” (note: translation of a translation).
• Uehara pitched two innings and struck out three in Yomiuri’s 4-1 loss to Yokohama.
• Former Twin Lew Ford has been demoted to Hanshin’s farm team for the third time this year.

Just picked up this thread from JapaneseBaseball.com that says that Hanshin has purchased the contract of reliever Chris Resop from the Braves. Interestingly, shortly before reading that thread, I saw this re-run of an article on Sanspo, which said that Hanshin had a scout in the US looking for relief help for when Bullpen aces Kyuji Fujikawa and Tomoyuki Kubota will be away for the Olympics.

I’ve never seen Resop pitch, but he’s appeared in parts of four MLB seasons. He might be kind of a AAAA guy since he’s put up respectable numbers in minors but hasn’t found sustained MLB success yet. Check out his full stats here. Resop is still only 25, so there’s room for him to develop as well.